Juliette Lewis, best known for her performances in films like Natural Born Killers and From Dusk Till Dawn, took a few minutes off during layover en route to Austin to chat with us about her new band, Juliette and the New Romantiques. The group is the second musical project for Lewis, who toured and released the 2007 album Four on the Floor with Juliette and the Licks. Lewis was fresh off of shooting for Betty Anne Waters, directed by Tony Goldwyn and starring Hilary Swank.

Is it hard to switch gears straight from doing a movie to doing music?

It used to be, but now I find that songwriting and acting, drama, they feed each other. I’m a better actress because I’m a songwriter, and I’m a better songwriter because I work with drama and emotion. Yesterday I played an alcoholic, downtrodden, forty year old – they aged me with makeup. That was intense, but I love it. When you make movies, it seems pretty darn relaxed after you’ve toured on a bus or a van for two years. I’ve toured in a van, so I know that a bus is a luxury. Continue Reading →

An actress of startling range, Juliette Lewis has released an EP and two albums since 2003 with her band the Licks.

Citing a desire to strike out in new directions, Lewis disbanded the group in 2009, forming the New Romantiques soon after. The resulting album, “Terra Incognita,” produced by The Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, is exhilarating and exhausting — spacey, Latin-tinged, tribal, grungy, droney, occasionally bluesy and even, just for a second, a little country. The sonic variance, though, is anchored by Lewis’ gravelly, brazen yowl, which sounds like Patti Smith one minute and Kim Deal the next. Billboard caught up with Lewis by phone when she was in central Italy in the middle of a European tour.

Billboard: Where are you right now?

Juliette Lewis: Napoli. I’ve never been here. It’s a time-table Rubik’s Cube lining up press, but touring’s great … It’s an endurance test on the senses. Yesterday was a 12-hour airport extravaganza. It was like serving prison time, but my band and I are so goofy, and we joke around and it’s fine. We did it all on four hours’ sleep — but it’s so great: You get onstage, you push yourself to the limit.

Billboard: The first noticeable thing about “Terra Incognita” is that it covers an incredible amount of sonic ground.

Lewis: It’s a smorgasbord. It’s filled with sonic contrast, and the sonic contrast represents human and my contradictions. I always call myself an emotionalist. I feel. When I wrote this album I felt disillusioned and optimistic. I felt innocent and vulnerable as much as I felt cynical and strong.

That’s my emotional context, so the sonic contrast of (the record) fit. The heavy bottom — the drum sounds are so f—ing meaty — anchors it, and the guitar textures accentuate the story. Omar was the perfect producer for that.

Billboard: Rodriguez-Lopez has said he’s meticulous and hard to work with. What was your experience like?

Lewis: He’s not that way with me. With his own stuff he cracks the whip in a very particular way. He’s a conductor, he’s a mad conductor. He literally conducts with his hands and his mouth — he beatboxes it. But in this case I was the artist, so I was hard to deal with. Not really!

Our union, though, was a match made in heaven. He’s much more versed in music and he’s a bit of a genius, but we speak similarly because he hears riffs and to him it’s connected to everything else — to the stars and people and cinema.

Billboard: So how did the recording process work then?

Lewis: I would talk my wacky language to him and he’d interpret it to the drummer. I’d say, “I want it to sound like Zeus woke up from a nap and he’s pissed and there’s an opening in the clouds and he starts handing out lightning bolts,” which is crazy, but that’s how I hear the rhythm. And Omar, he whispers some things to the drummer, and that’s exactly what it sounds like. It really encouraged the songwriter within me.

Billboard: Do your acting and songwriting come from the same place?

Lewis: They’re interrelated. It’s like a painter who’s painting with oil, then you decide, “I’m only going to make junk art.” You’re still an artist, your medium is different. Now I work with sounds but I still connect with that center. It’s all a sense of surrender and an attempt to connect.

Acting is me, but music is even more me. It’s everything. It’s the bitch’s brew. It’s my past self, present and future, and then my imagination. Being an actor is like being a bass player, one of the component parts to the collective hole.

Billboard: And so fronting the New Romantiques is like being the writer-director?

Lewis: Yeah, it’s the writer-director and … (laughs) I don’t know if the metaphor fully translates, but yeah, the writer and director — and the emotionalist.

Juliette Lewis has announced details for her third album, Terra Incognita.

The Hollywood actress-turned-singer, who was frontwoman of Juliette And The Licks, will unveil her new solo album on August 31.

“Because this album is so sonically different than anything I’ve done before and captures many flavours of my emotional life and voice, it needed an entirely new name,” Juliette said in a statement.

“Terra Incognita means unknown territory – and that’s where I wanted to go musically. The guitars are more wild and atmospheric. The groove is dark and deep and allow for a lot of sonic contrasts.”

She added: “It took me five years to really cut my teeth both as a performer and as a songwriter and I wanted to break all the habits I’d gotten used to and let songs develop out of a groove or simple piano notes and melody. It’s been a truly liberating and radical experience.”

Actress-singer Juliette Lewis recently sat down in the Rolling Stone studios, or a “little square room” as she jokingly called it, to perform two acoustic renditions of tracks off her latest album, Terra Incognita. The LP, which was produced by the Mars Volta’s Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, is due out September 1st. In the video above, Lewis, guitarist Chris Watson and percussionist Finnegan perform an intimate take of Terra’s closer track “Suicide Dive Bombers.”

As Rock Daily previously reported, Lewis shifted from the Licks to new moniker the New Romantiques because “this album is so sonically different than anything I’ve done before… it needed an entirely new name.” That change in sound—from the riff-heavy Licks to the atmospheric Romantiques—can be heard on the other cut Lewis performed in our studio, the bluesy “Hard Lovin’ Woman.” Rolling Stone also talked with Lewis about her new project backstage at this year’s SXSW festival, with the Kalifornia actress telling RS that Rodriguez-Lopez got involved after the two met at a music festival and bonded over their love of Federico Fellini films.

Lewis and her band are currently on tour in Europe, but the band will return stateside for a month’s worth of dates during a joint tour with Cat Power and the Pretenders starting August 7th with a show in Wallingford, Connecticut. Two more songs off Terra Incognito—the album’s title track and “Fantasy Bar,” are currently streaming on the singer’s new Licks-less MySpace page.

What does the idea of rebellion mean to you?
Rebellion, to me, is about finding out where you feel safe, and then stepping outside of that space. I never got into acting to be safe. I get the most out of myself right before I start a project, when I’m scared to death. That’s the revolt, that’s the rebellion.

What sort of fears do you face?
Starting a rock ’n’ roll band at the age of 30 and pursuing my love of musical expression, not knowing how the fuck I was going to do it, where I would begin, what kind of music I would even do. It’s like
renegade filmmakers who never went to art school. It’s really about finding your voice.

Did you have any sort of formal acting training?
I took three little classes when I was 11 with this lady in her backyard. The third time I went to her door, a person told me she died. So I never went back to class after that.

From whom did you learn the most?
I learned from Oliver Stone that I am my own worst enemy. One time, I was putting myself down on set, saying stuff like, Why should we do the take again? I suck. And then he said, “Juliette, nobody wants to hear that shit.” He basically told me to knock it off, and from that day forth, I’ve never again voiced that kind of negativity.

Hollywood film star and rock chick JULIETTE LEWIS paid a stunning visit to Morecambe last week to play a gig at Morecambe Library, of all places. Our reporter LAUREN HOLDEN met the star of ‘Natural Born Killers’ and ‘From Dusk ‘Til Dawn’ in this unusual setting
THE rain is beating down and it’s over an hour until doors open but already swarms of eager fans are huddled outside Morecambe Library.

And they’re not waiting to check out the latest Harry Potter book.

Tonight in Morecambe, one of Hollywood’s finest will be performing live and it’s without a doubt the hottest ticket in town.

Announced only a fortnight ago, the ‘Get it Loud in Libraries’ gig will see A-Lister Juliette Lewis (known for her roles in Natural Born Killers and Cape Fear) perform on the humble library stage.
Arriving at the venue, Juliette shows few signs of her celebrity status, happily posing for photographs before being whisked off for a sound check.

Such is the rock ‘n’ roll life. Juliette has barely touched down on Morecambe soil after a gruelling journey from America, when she’s thrust into the media spotlight.

“I’ve been thinking about this show for weeks actually,” she enthuses.
“Just the idea of having a rock ‘n’ show in a library is very funny. I love it. And this library’s really beautiful.”

Having ‘prepared herself’ by watching online clips of Lancaster Library’s ‘Get it Loud’ gigs, Juliette is eager to take to the stage later.

“I saw a film of one of these gigs and it sounded incredible, “she explained.

“That’s what you want to know as a musician – that it’s gonna sound good.

“The sound is pretty massive. It’s bigger and more rocking than some little rock clubs.”

But, believe it or not, it’s not the only ‘unusual’ location that Juliette has played in.

“You wouldn’t believe where I’ve played – I’ve played a casino, on a boat in Amsterdam, even a lunch cafeteria in a school.
“I love doing anything new and untried because that’s what I’ve been doing on this little rock and roll journey.

“I really love all these peculiar places – it’s one of my favourite aspects of touring.”

That said, she’s quick to admit she hasn’t set foot inside a library for “a very long time”, let alone performed in one.
“I can’t even remember when I checked a book out of a library,” she says.
“Recently, I picked my mum up from a library – but I was only in the parking lot. That doesn’t count.

“I hope libraries are not a dying medium, because it’s kind of nice.”
With new album, ‘Terra Incognita’ out in September this year, Juliette is keen to give fans in Morecambe a taster of her material and makes it clear her musical career is no hobby.

“I think after five years, three records and touring the globe three or four times, you could say I’m very serious about this.

“The music is a very personal endeavour in that I oversee everything, from the cover art of the albums, leading my band and the lyrics. It’s very fulfilling.

“Now, when I do movies I’m like: ‘phew’ – and it gets kind of boring very quickly.

“For the first couple of weeks I’m like: ‘wow, this is easy breezy’ and I can sort of relax, as I’m not the boss, or making business decisions.

“But I love the whole process (of making music) and I love writing the songs. ‘Terra Incognita’ is a proper record. The sounds are a bit different – the guitar’s more atmospheric and strange and it’s less straight up rock and roll. I’m kind of happy with the set.”
It’s certainly clear Juliette’s raring to go.

“I’m expecting to turn everybody into 10-year-olds (tonight), where they wanna rip the books off the shelves – but we’re not going to.”

Playing to a relatively small crowd in a tiny seaside resort is undoubtedly a far cry from Juliette’s star studded life, but it’s clear from the off that she’s very much looking forward to the show.

“(I love) that connection with people. It’s really special and deep and I think music is spiritual – I love it.”

Such is Juliette’s commitment to the band, she’s even had to turn down the odd film role.

“At the very beginning I did (turn down roles) a lot, as I wanted to tour like any young band would tour.

“I only had Christmas and a couple of weekends off, but I was happy to do that.

“I made movies for 15 years, you know. I have done some movies recently, but I really wanted to take care of the music and the band and find my audience.”

For now, though, Juliette’s audience is right here in Morecambe and by the look of things, she couldn’t have hoped for a better one.

When she arrives on stage just before 9pm (following a fantastic support set by Brighton’s Telegraphs), Juliette’s all smiles as she’s greeted by her adoring fans.

Sporting skin-tight trousers, silver top and black fingerless gloves, she swaggers about the stage, leaping into the throng, high-fiving the audience and planting kisses on unsuspecting fans.

“Has anyone played here before?” she asks.

“Only me? That’s what I like to hear!”

Joking that we’re ‘in detention’, Juliette shouts: “I think we all got a bit misty-eyed up here, but we put some energy back into these books” before thanking Morecambe for their hospitality.

“Thanks for having me! I love the name, Morecambe. It sounds Medieval, right?”

Later, Juliette and her band stick around to sign autographs and pose for photos.

When actress-turned-rocker Juliette Lewis formed her band Juliette and the Licks five years ago, it was as an attempt to bare her soul and have fun exploring music after so many years of focusing on film. But earlier this spring, Lewis announced on her MySpace page the Licks are no more, and that she’ll be going it solo for her upcoming album, Terra Incognita. After talking to FILTER about the most influential films and albums in her life, Lewis took some time to discuss her new musical direction and what listeners can expect on her debut solo record, due out in September.

Earlier this spring, you announced the end of Juliette Lewis and the Licks and a new start as simply “Juliette Lewis.” What prompted the switch?

When I got the Licks off the ground five years ago, I allowed myself to not over-think music, to not be precious, but spit out what I was feeling at the time. The music was very no-nonsense and guitar-driven. And then I stopped and asked myself, “Am I ready to be more revealing, and to discover melody?” I wanted to write songs that were more dynamic and didn’t hang on guitar riffs all the time. It’s an evolution.

I come from a place of discontentment and hunger as an artist, so I’m rarely satisfied. Also, I’m an independent artist. I’m not a radio artist, I’m not on a major label, and all the odds are stacked against me anyway. So I’ve got nothing to lose if I explore my own musical hunger and journey.

What can listeners expect on this record, versus your past work? Where have you taken your style?

Well, it’s not some vast departure of the groove and rock and roll I’ve brought to the equation before. That’s all there, and it’s definitely in our live show, but the sound and the groove has expanded. There’s more drama. I also finally wrote a blues song, which I’ve always wanted to write. I guess you could expect more peaks and valleys, and a really killer band. And some sparkly pants here and there.

You’re starting a tour in August with The Pretenders and Cat Power. How did you get hooked up into that lineup?

How amazing is that? I am so excited and beside myself. You submit yourself as an opener and the band checks it out and then they approve you. It was a real organic thing. I don’t know either of those artists personally, and I just couldn’t be happier. I think it’s going to be a killer lineup, and the type where people should come out and be ready for a whole night’s experience. This is a lineup you want to come real early for…and then you can see my band. [Laughs]

Maybe this isn’t a fair question to ask, but what do you find yourself more passionate about – movies or music?

Anything I’m doing at the time, I’m willing to shed my skin for. So if I’m in a movie, I want to give the most in that moment. It’s about total surrender for me, making things as honest as possible. When I’m writing and performing live, it’s the same way. But I had done movies for 15 years and because I wasn’t exploring the passion of songwriting and performing live, it was building in me like a volcano. So now that I’ve done music for a good five years, I can do movies with relish and a new love. Maybe what’s more personal is the music because I have a part in everything: the merch design, the track listings, the songwriting, the live shows. So it’s all an extension of me. It’s a different experience.

For more info on Lewis’ film and music endeavors, check out her MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/juliettelewis

Partner Sites

Juliette on Twitter

Site Information

Versatile Juliette Lewis is a non-profit fansite. We are in no way affiliated with Juliette, her management, her agency and etcetera. All photos and media are being used under the Fair Copyright Law 107 and are copyright to their respective owners. No infringement is intended.